Category Archives: creative nonfiction & memoir

24 truths

The truth is there’s nothing so beautiful today as the rain falling like a song on simmering stacks of leaves, which tomorrow will rustle under my feet and float around, lifeless; nothing so beautiful as a roiling October sky, no wishes, no tomorrow, just this moment and the sugar maples flaming at the roadside as I pass, too fast. They burn so beautiful for such a short time.

The truth is, I wanted to stop that moment. Freeze-frame. Snap.

The truth is that I wish I could be more honest on this blog, more raw. I see beauty in raw things. I want to look at things even if they scare me. Or especially if they do.

The truth is that I have a “disability” that people can’t see, but when people know about it, then I have to work twice as hard to prove what I am, to prove what I can be. And sometimes it doesn’t work, anyway–the proving, I mean.

The truth is, I’m constantly balancing between the fear of saying too much and the fear of not being heard.

The truth is, I lean back against trees and gather strength that way.

The truth is, I’m a modern-day mystic.

The truth is, I read Tarot cards not by memorizing but by looking at the story that the pictures make. And they make a different picture every time, and I don’t believe that it’s an oracle as much as a set of situations and questions, to which you apply intuition.

The truth is when I lay the cards out I think about chaos theory, the fact that if I’d shuffled differently, different cards would appear each time, but that it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s all in what you make of the symbols and stories.

Symbols and stories, language condensed. I’m free-writing and I’m stuck somewhere between poetry and prose.

The truth is that I’m actually very shy, even though I fake a good friendly. If I’m not pretending polite-nice-to-meet-you-graciousness, I’m self-enclosed, and then people think I’m snobbish. Not everyone, just some people. And I try not to care.

The truth is I think love hurts. I mean sometimes I love people so much that it hurts. A physical hurt, a butterfly stomach, a racing heart. A lump in the throat. An ache.

The truth is I push people away without meaning or wanting to.

The truth is that I want to be more than what I am, whether or not that makes sense. I mean I want to be a better person. I read a lot of books that are supposed to make me better, work to cultivate self-acceptance. Cultivation is a funny thing. You have to care for a garden of things that nourish you, even if it’s hard as hell. Especially if it’s hard as hell.

Every book asks me to define my true values, but first I need to figure out how to get through the day. The day is endless, sometimes. Sometimes I write until five in the morning. The quiet time is beautiful. Sacred, a gem. The dark is so lovely, better than silk sheets and the finest coffee.

The truth is that I sit closest to the door in every class and I leave first because I don’t want to fall into the trap of getting close to people. And I know how sad that sounds, but really I don’t mind being solitary. Days alone without answering the phone. Mixing essential oils, wondering if I could make signature scents for people and sell them online because …

The truth is I really have very little. I mean, enough to live on, and support from those around me. I get by, I eat, I get to enjoy nice things like movies and the occasional lunch at this little Greek restaurant I love (lettuce stained mildly maroon from the beets, perfect, all crisp and rich with feta). But I can’t do as much as some people can or else I screw up medically because of that disability I mentioned.

The truth is I feel all alienated at school because everyone else works full time, and I don’t, and if you can’t explain a disability then you have to accept looking lazy.

“Disability,” really it seems the wrong word. “Difficulty,” I like better, or “road block with detour.”

The truth is I eat a lot of noodles not just because they’re cheap and I’m the (truthfully) below-poverty-level kind of poor, but also because I just happen to love experimenting with spices, which I always have done ever since I was in India where the air everywhere is thick with unfamiliar spices; the scent of curry in the very walls of that flat in New Delhi where I slept sweating, where two girls and I swapped continually the bed by the fan, because no matter how dark and thick the night, we were all zapping with the 12-hour time difference, laughing & delirious with travel exhaustion.

The truth is sometimes I think I’d like to live in a little mountain town in northern India, Punjab maybe, and have fresh goat’s milk in the morning, and wake up to roosters like I did that long summer in Dharamsala, and learn to heckle over prices without seeming so American. Because sometimes going away just sounds so nice. Stepping outside of the ideas they have of who you are, yourself and others.

The truth is I couldn’t move to India now and 96 percent of the reason for that is because I couldn’t leave my dogs. These loyal creatures who stand beside us. Sometimes I think I love them more than people.

The truth is that I actually do care a whole hell of a lot what people think, but I do the best I can not to show it. I worry that I talk too much in class, but I can’t shut up anyway, and then I go home and worry all night about each aspect of each thing I said, because the truth is I’m really fucking neurotic.

Yep, I said it: the truth is, I’m neurotic and I eat chocolate when I’m nervous, and sometimes all the sadness is so crazy all at once that I can look down at it, like it’s all a movie or some mad God’s ultimate divine joke, and then I see the irony in it.

And things become funny, like seeing the same people in the same waiting room at the same doctor’s office for years on end; seeing them so often that you share diagnoses and discuss the merits of various treatments; seeing them so often that some of them drive you crazy, like this one man who pontificates on his life to the point where I close my eyes and daydream about a different life, in Paris or India or maybe somewhere else I’ve never been or seen.

I mean, I think it might be incredible to shake up a life the way Buddhist monks shake up a mandala they’ve built so forever tediously from colored sand.

The truth is I think a lot of us are the same on the inside, but we can’t admit it to each other. We walk around in our personal bubbles of space and separate auras and then when we get home we burn with the personal, underneath sinew, deep inside; we feed it with cupcakes or wine, or else we exercise, or make art or music or poetry or whatever we find most beautiful.

The truth is I want to make something beautiful every day because it’s the best way there is to cope with all the truths inside that I haven’t told you, not even here, not even now.

so i went to a protest just to rub up against strangers …

Running the Invincible Summer writing circle (I’ve come to think of it is a circle now at this point; I’ve come to see the vitality of the interaction among the women writing & bouncing their inspiration and styles and voices off of one another), I’ve remembered something so vital, I can’t believe I ever forgot it:

I’m a writer first.

I know it’s rather passe to say “I’ve learned so much from my students, it’s like they’re the teachers!” Well, I don’t really care who thinks what is passe, because I’m saying it.

I’ve been “teaching” this course and watching writers really develop, really grow, and I’ve realized that my own writing has felt (to me) strained for months now. Maybe part of it has to do with blogging and (attempting) freelancing; maybe part of it runs deeper than that. My veins run deep with stories.

So things are taking new & different directions, and I’m in “eccentric artist mode” at the moment. This is unfortunate inasmuch as I’m trying to run a business, but I’m a bit obsessed with this poetry collection that’s been sitting gathering dust.

Eccentric artist mode means scrambling eggs in a saucepan because all the other pans are dirty; it means attempting to vacuum with a novel in my hand; it means doing gogo-dance-cardio workouts in my underwear; standing out behind the apartment for a while swimming in the humid air just so I can go inside and appreciate the a/c all over again; sucking down glass after glass of iced tea like it’s going out of style; moving randomly between the piano and the jigsaw puzzle on the table; forgetting to brush my teeth; and oh, writing a lot.

I enjoy all of this & I feel a surge of energy moving me forward into something new, but I can’t tell you what it is just yet.

But yes, it’s the course & the women writing that have got me writing like a madwoman again, feeling on fire & hungry for more.

And all of this is why I’m doing out-of-character things, like posting youtube videos of the songs that I have on repeat:

I was here

photo by Jess Morrow

“Sights and sounds pull me back down another year. I was here. I was here.” -Tori Amos

I took this photograph over a year ago, after work one day, back when I was doing the “nine-to-five.”

I was playing with this exquisite little porcelain mask that I bought in Italy, on a sticky-hot July day in 1998.

I felt like a child playing, photographing my feet, putting a mask in a shoe, wondering if I could call myself an artist if I put masks and shoes in enough strange places.

Looking back now, I see this porcelain mask, in its delicacy, the colors and swirls hand-painted by an artist I’ll never meet, set gently in the high-heeled shoe that I’d worn to work so often that the soles were wearing thin.

I see myself, a year ago, as a girl wearing the mask of a woman comfortable in an office, in a courtroom, at a desk.

A girl, still, though I was already into my 30′s–but yes, a girl, still.

Walking in those heels was uncomfortable–to the soul, to the feet, to the sole of the foot: I apologize, the puns are unavoidable.

Even a very uncomfortable place can become a comfort zone when there is a steady paycheck and health insurance attached. You can even pretend you love the look and sound of your own high-heeled shoes.

Now, I look back and wonder why I didn’t see the truth in this photograph, the message I was trying to send myself through my own art.

Scene:

A girl comes home, exhausted, from an office. She kicks off her heels, picks up a camera.

She wishes she were an artist, like the one who painted that tiny mask she bought in Venice. She hasn’t been to Venice since she was 18, when the future was laid out before her, panorama-style, dreams in any and every direction.

She wishes she were an artist. She sets the mask in the shoe that’s been pinching her left foot all day. “Click,” goes the camera.

She saves the photo, but she doesn’t know why.

Save everything you make. One day, you’ll see how it fits into your body of work.

Kick off your high heels, stomp barefoot in fingerpaint. Splash color everywhere and write poems on your walls with permanent marker. Sign your name to it: 

“I was here.”

smoky rooms and feathered hats

Growing up, I always thought being a writer was a sleek, glamorous thing.

I pictured a writer as a woman who wore fabulous flapper frocks and carried cigarettes in elegant cases that she’d unclasp and offer to other writers, who were also sexy and smoky and wore beads, and sipped drinks with ethnic-sounding names like “martini” or “white Russian.”

The men would all wear fedoras and they’d be smoking too, wearing narrow ties and jumping up to light the women’s cigarettes when they heard silver cases unclasping.

All the women in this vision wore hats with beautiful peacock feathers that danced as they bobbed their heads and laughed.

Oddly, nobody in this fantasy-velvet-lounge ever did any writing.

(I was a kid who read a lot of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, watched old movies, and had long, drawn-out daydreams. That’s probably why I am a writer.)

(Of course, I quit smoking years ago.) Regardless, my bizarre and detailed childhood dreams of writer-hood were still a far cry from what being a writer really looks like.

Here’s a day in the life of a writer like me, after writing incessantly for too many days:

You only get up early because your dogs (or single-dog, or cats, or fish, or maybe kids–I don’t understand kids but they seem popular) make you. Early-morning journaling turns into an email-checking session that cuts into time you meant to spend writing.

There is no smoke, there are no feathers, and you never see men in fedoras except on TV.

Instead, you see your neighbors, and you’re not in a fabulous frock. You’re in pink plaid pajama pants torn at the knee and an outdated political T-shirt that wasn’t even yours to begin with (someone left it in your dorm room in 1999). You haven’t showered in two days, your hair is a mess, and you can’t remember if you brushed your teeth today.

Your dogs think you look beautiful and they walk you to the mailbox. You all eat lunch together on the couch while you watch bad movies (with men in fedoras). 

Around five p.m. you get inspired again, make more coffee, eat cereal for dinner, and then work feverishly at your next article so you can finish it so you can work on your novel or maybe spin out a few poems and still have time for a cocktail at the end.

(Maybe a martini.)

The above is a cautionary description of the life circumstances of a woman in her thirties whom I happen to know (we’ll call her Fressica).

She’s always written, but last year she got fired from her job because she was such a badass, so now she is a Writer by trade.

She spins out articles like a DJ spins records and writes a poem a day.

Today, though, Fressica realized she had been wearing the same pajamas for four days and couldn’t recall if she brushed her teeth at all yesterday. That’s because yesterday, she had a fight with Photoshop that made her neck hurt so bad that she had to pop twice the recommended number of generic Ibuprofen (which is all she can afford, because she’s a writer).

The fight ended in Fressica’s favor, around 11 p.m. when she jumped up and yelled “Take that, Photoshop! I can draw straight lines all over any picture I want now because I figured out your stupid secret!”

Yes, she won the fight, but I was concerned for my friend’s health, especially after she realized the bad smell in the kitchen was actually her, and that was why it seemed so close no matter where she went.

I love her very much, so I suggested that she take a short trip somewhere. Somewhere that she doesn’t know anyone.

And I would intone you to do the same. If you work at home–artist, creator, musician, painter, entrepreneur, coach, whoever you may be–don’t become like Fressica. You only have one set of teeth and you don’t want to be the official neighborhood crazy lady. 

(Fressica is currently a couple of hours north of her home, in a cozy little hotel room near a beach. I sense her sanity restoring itself.)

In all seriousness–it really will help your work, if you can afford it, to drive off into the unknown. Or bike there with a notebook. Spend a day somewhere new. Change up your surroundings. Prove all stereotypes wrong: writers are anything but lazy.

I love hotels when they have nice clean bathtubs and big, soft pillows.

Tomorrow I’ll be walking a while on a chilly beach.

Maybe I’ll find a lounge with velvet couches and people in feathers and fedoras. We should meet there for White Russians. I’ll buy.

Adam Yauch: an awkward sort of obituary

Early Saturday morning I learned of the death of Adam Yauch (“MCA,” the Beastie Boy turned Buddhist activist), at age 47, after a long battle with cancer.

In an effort to fight back tears, I decided to try writing about it. That’s how I deal with stuff: I try to write about and through the things that hurt most or hit hardest.

I wanted to write an intelligent, thoughtful blog post about growing up around Detroit; how, thanks to my older brother, I can’t remember a time that I didn’t recognize the beats and sounds of the Beastie Boys’ music. (It was always Time to Get Ill.)

But I also wanted to write about Adam’s integrity. Obits, elegies, euologies: all I could think was there was this genius of rhythm & example (to a whole generation, possibly more) of integrity–and he was gone. I wanted to find a way to say the words I’ve found & taken solace in over these past few days, find a way to be eloquent and graceful at once, as in this article by Nathan Rabin, via the A.V. newswire:

“Yauch’s life and career are a testament to the possibilities of emotional, creative, and artistic growth. A man who rose to fame peddling a proudly obnoxious form of adolescent nihilism grew up to be a man whose life and career were defined by idealism and integrity. Adam Yauch wanted to make the world a more compassionate, loving, and funky place. He succeeded. The world is poorer for his loss but richer for the contributions he made.”

In moments of grief, I am surprisingly dumb. I lose the eloquence I need in order to pay the dead their due homage.

I wish I could write a graceful obit, one that does Adam Yauch real honor.

On Saturday I tried writing about how Adam (known always to me, first, as MCA) inspired me when he became a Buddhist; how deeply I admired Adam (and the entire band) for their public apologies, in the late 90’s, to women and to the gay community, for the offensive and hurtful lyrics that peppered their earlier music; how Adam spearheaded the entire organization of the Tibetan Freedom Concert.

You can’t comment on authenticity when it’s that obvious.

I called my mom to see if she had heard about Adam, and suddenly, on the phone, broke down sobbing. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and tried to laugh: “I really don’t know why I’m crying; I didn’t call so I could cry.”

They weren’t my favorite band, but they were always there, where I lived & when I lived; they’re a piece of the catalog of music that shaped and influenced my adolescence. Words tattooed on my brain; words, rhythm, humor, sounds. Memory, memory, memory.

I’ve written for a couple of days now and finally figured out that, like everyone, I have my own tribute, but I can only pay it in a scatter of memories: disjointed certainly, and awkward, but precious.

As a very young girl I sat against the wall in my bedroom through which I could hear what my older brother listened to, and feel the walls vibrate with volume. The Beastie Boys wrote songs that I don’t even remember hearing for the first time; for me, they were always there.

Cars, kids. Doc Marten boots whose tops filled with snow in winter, freezing your feet, which I’d hold against the heater to my best friend’s car while the seats vibrated to the beat of “Intergalactic.”

I remember the oldest songs best; I remember cars and parties, cassette tapes, laughter, MTV when it was brand-freaking-new, and a certain degree of innocence.

Summer nights with windows down, purposefully obnoxious music played too loud in quiet neighborhoods with perfect lawns, the smell of cigarette smoke when it was still exotic and cool. Being young without knowing what it meant to be young.

Everybody’s youth has a soundtrack.

The Beastie Boys have continually demonstrated a mastery of genre-bending and genre-blending that any artist can’t help but admire.

A true voice (and I’m talking about writers here, and rappers, and anyone else with Voice) changes over time, the same way our personalities and tastes change.

And genres, interests, loves: they coexist and contradict.

I think of generations slipping away, knowing it always happens. I try to understand.

Adam Yauch was a gift to the world, someone who demonstrated integrity made an actual, palpable difference.

Forty-seven is too young, too soon.

But isn’t it always too soon? Don’t we always want just a little more time? 

I hate crying. Of course I avoided writing a post that I knew would make me cry. A post I had to write anyway, because I remember MCA for his integrity, his generosity, and his talent—and such people deserve not just one tribute, but a parade of appreciation; memories retrieved, held and revered.

I’d like to be remembered that way one day, too.